Day of the Master
Ravenous 4.3 & 4.4
Released: 9 October 2019
Listened: 12/29/21
By 2019, when this story was recorded, Big Finish had gained the rights to use characters through to the end of the Capaldi era. In addition, through their casting wizardry, they managed to talk Sir Derek Jacobi, Michelle Gomez, and Eric Roberts into returning as the Master. Previously, Big Finish didn’t have access to Roger Delgado or Antony Ainley (as they’d both passed away), so they didn’t do much with the Master. Whereas now, they had a plethora of Master actors willing and able to participate. The inevitable result of such largess is a multi-Master story. The big multi-Master story would have to wait another couple of years for Masterful, but this four-Master story could be considered a test run. Part 1 splits up the characters with various Masters: The Doctor leaves Liv on a Time Lord station and sends a distress call, but the Time Lord who shows up to “rescue” her turns out to be the War Master. Naturally, he finds Liv to be strident and abrasive, and she doesn’t much care. He keeps the rescue fiction going until he’s learned about the Ravenous situation, then dumps her. Helen was kidnapped by Missy at some point, and they’re now on a far-future dead Earth, following a book of prophecy that only Helen can read for some reason, in search of a god. Missy treats Helen…pretty much like she treats all the Doctor’s companions, somewhere between derision and amusement. The Doctor has popped off to Kolstan, a planet inside the vortex, where the ancient Gallifreyan named Artron is doing research on the inhabitants, and runs into the “Bruce” Master. Since the Doctor knows him on sight, he doesn’t even try subterfuge, just heads right for the power grab. Part 1 ends with everybody in mortal peril wherever they are. Part 2 more or less puts everybody together…although three Masters are present on the station, the Doctor never meets Missy or the War Master, thus preserving the timeline (until Big Finish got a little bolder in just a bit). There’s a scene with Liv, the War Master, and a gun, which really shouldn’t be funny, but definitely is. The Masters together are a riot, mostly Missy, because she loves the “Bruce” Master’s accent and keeps imitating it. The War Master barely tolerates her insanity. It’s not supposed to be an all-Master story, because the threat is still ongoing, but three Masters don’t leave much room for anyone else. The Eleven’s plan with the Ravenous almost becomes a background event, as the Doctor and the Masters each do a part to foil it, independently. There’s quite a few codas, as the Ravenous’ story is ended, as is the Eleven’s (except it’s not really the end, because Time Lord), and we find out what the War Master was doing this whole time, with the reward of resurrecting the “crispy” Master from "Planet of Dust" and granting him a new regeneration cycle. We knew that happened sometime before or during the Time War, and it’s strongly implied that Crispy regenerates into Alex MacQueen here. So that’s a nice thread to tie up, even if it wasn’t really necessary. As an ending, it gets the job done, but I think the Master pileup kind of drowns out everything else. I remembered this story being all Master, all the time, but that’s not actually the case. It’s just their personalities that make it seem that way. The Ravenous, unfortunately, fall short for me as an enemy. They only really have one motivation, which makes it tough to accept them as characters, and I could really do without their visual appearance, which shouldn’t make a difference on audio, but there it is.